


all yours, yet

by inmoonlightigetseasick



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Dorks in Love, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Shakespeare, the bard as the pinnacle of romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 07:17:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21222716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inmoonlightigetseasick/pseuds/inmoonlightigetseasick
Summary: Todd thinks, the only truth is the words they share, is the warmth in their touch. Keating taught them to be poets, and now they fill their own blank verse. Todd wants to be on every stage opposite to Neil, he wants violent delights and violent ends.--Neil asks Todd's help in rehearsing Romeo and Juliet's first meeting. It is... hopelessly romantic.





	all yours, yet

**** It’s a cloudy afternoon when the door to Todd’s room slams open. The gale force of wind that blusters in behind it wields a script, and a smile that could render anyone speechless. Todd is already helpless to it, and so he waits while the hurricane settles in front of him, beseeches his heart. 

“I got the part!”

“I knew you would,” Todd says, softly, and something in Neil’s expression softens too. 

“It was all thanks to your help. I couldn’t have— not without you.”

“I didn’t do anything. It was all you. It’s your gift.” 

“You’re my gift too.” Todd’s chest grows tight but he forces a smile, Neil speaks so impulsively sometimes, he’s so caught up in the rush of the new play. Todd will forgive him this, knowing that Neil is not aware of the effect he has on Todd, doesn’t see how the things he says will light up little sparks of hope in his chest, how irresponsible it is. 

“Let me know if you need any more help running lines.” 

“The gift that keeps on giving.” Neil gives him a light shove on the shoulder. Todd smiles, smaller than he means to, thinking about the residual heat on his skin from Neil’s touch. He smiles, a mischievous glint in his eye. “You busy right now?”

“Was trying to do English homework. Got stuck.” 

“Well this is perfect then, the spirit of Shakespeare will surely inspire you some for later.” 

“I hope you’re right,” Todd holds his hand out for the script, but Neil snatches it back. 

“Not here. Get your coat, we’ll work in the cave.” 

Todd grumbles, but obliges, agrees with Neil’s ridiculous idea that the spirits will reach them better there. He’s powerless yet to Neil’s magnetic pull. Bundled up they rush into the cave, bigger with just the two of them, but colder too.

“Don’t bother with a fire,” Neil says, “We’ve got body heat.” 

And his body proves that true when Todd flushes at the suggestion, at the thought, the anticipation of being near Neil. Being pulled, Todd huddles in a corner of the cave with Neil, who pushes a script into his gloved hands. 

“You get to be Juliet.”

“Isn’t she a girl?” Todd asks the question hoping the irony in it masks the nervous true question beneath it, _doesn’t Romeo love her_?

“You know in Shakespeare’s time boys would play them.”

“Really?”

“Well, only the prettiest ones.” 

Todd feels himself blushing again, he looks down, flustered and turns the pages. 

“Stop there.”

“Okay,” Todd says, and clears his throat. Neil starts to speak and Todd’s gaze shoots up, immediately captivated. He wonders if Neil knows what this does to him. 

“If I profane with my unworthiest hand, this holy shrine, the gentle fine is this,” And Todd jolts when he finds Neil is picking up is hand, holding it in his gloved one, bringing it up to his mouth where Todd is hypnotized watching him speak, “My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand, to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.” 

When Todd can bring himself to look back up at Neil’s eyes, the silence stretching obtrusively between them, he finds an expectant gaze, he looks down at his own script nervously. 

“G—Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this;” Todd winces a little at how clunky the words sound in his mouth, but when he glances at Neil he is only encouraged. “For saints…saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.”

In a moment of inspiration, Todd takes the hand that Neil is holding loosely, and puts up his palm so it touches Neil’s, who smirks. 

“Not quite right,” he murmurs, and takes off his glove. Todd takes the cue to do the same, and when they touch again, their skin is warm, and big, diffuse energy shocks the points at which they meet. Todd takes in a shaky breath. 

“Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?” Neil asks, his voice low and quiet.

“Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.”

“O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; they pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.” Neil moves closer to Todd then, so that Todd can see the puffs of mist in the air from his breath, can smell faintly the coffee from his lunch, the mint tea he always drinks. 

“S-Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.” And Todd is stuck, firm in place. 

“Then move not,” Neil says, inching closer, “while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.”

Then, there is a moment of heavy quiet, of something significant passed between them, something lighter even than breath, and more invisible. Todd is transfixed, eyes locked on Neil’s,but they’re no longer just the two of them, standing in this cave, rather, they’re in front of a crowd at the Globe, it’s the fifteenth century, it’s all of time compressed into one second. The second before Neil dips down, his lips dry and warm, and presses them clumsily to Todd’s. And Todd gasps, mouth falling open, warmer still, and kissing back. His every nerve ending alight, the hand that touches Neil’s, the fingers curl, and twine together, and squeeze tighter. Neil pulls away for a second to take a breath, and when Todd makes an impatient noise at the loss, and pulls him back again sealing their mouths together, Neil laughs against his lips. Neil kisses him hard, with purpose, like he’d been meaning to, and Todd can’t get enough. And soon he’s smiling too, and they’re smiling too much to kiss properly, so they lean back finally, but their hands are still clasped together. 

“Your line,” Neil murmurs, and Todd remembers suddenly why they’re here. 

“Then,” his voice comes out hoarse, like he’s never heard it before, he clears his throat and tries again, “Then have my lips the sin that they have took.”

Neil’s smile lights up the cave, “Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again.” And his lips are upon Todd’s in an instant, this time the kiss is slower, and more practiced, and somehow sweeter, though Todd never thought it possible. 

When it’s over Todd is breathless, he can only ask, “What was that for?”

“That’s not your line. You’re supposed to tell me I kiss by the book.”

“I’ve never read that book before.” 

Neil grins, “Come on, Todd.”

“You kiss by the book,” he concedes, but he reaches up and touches his lips to Neil’s, chaste and only for a second, he sighs, “You kiss by the book.” 

Neil pushes his forehead against Todd’s, always playful, he smiles. But Todd can’t make himself match it. He feels Neil nudge him again, feels his brow furrow against his own. Neil ducks down and kisses him before asking— and Todd wonders if they can always do this, kiss before they speak— and he whispers, “What’s wrong?”

“Why did you kiss me?”

“You’re my Juliet,” Neil answers, as if it’s the most obvious thing, and Todd’s heart sinks deeper in his chest. He wants to turn away, but that damned magnet keeps him in place. He wills his voice not to break, kisses Neil, and asks, “Is that all?”

Neil kisses him, “You’re my Romeo, too.”

“How can I be both?”

“You’re my Beatrice, you’re my Benedick, you’re my Viola, you’re my Orsino, you’re my Cleopatra, you’re my Antony—”

“Alright, already, I get it.”

“Do you?”

Todd can’t help but laugh. “You’re out of your mind.”

“Where am I, then? Am I in your heart?” 

“Yes,” Todd says, breathless, there is no other answer. 

“Then you’re out of your mind too.”

Todd shivers, half from the cold, half from Neil’s words. And he finds himself then suddenly in Neil’s embrace. 

“Time to head back, I think."

“Maybe we can read the death scene without actually dying.”

Neil laughs, and it rings loud and clear in the air. They leave the cave, arm in arm, into the unknown, into the unknowable. Todd thinks, the only truth is the words they share, is the warmth in their touch. Keating taught them to be poets, and now they fill their own blank verse. Todd wants to be on every stage opposite to Neil, he wants violent delights and violent ends. 

When he gazes up at Neil, the angles and the curves of him, the bright flashes of joy and soft sadnesses— he knows some part of it is his own, and he knows his whole heart has been surrendered to it. 

**Author's Note:**

> title from magnetic moves by katie toupin


End file.
